Too much of a good thing?

Our opinion: Are illuminated holiday decorations overwhelming Albany’s Washington Park? There are other places in the city where they could go.

The Christmas lights display was shining all right in Albany’s Washington Park as we navigated a seasonal traffic jam last weekend. The car engines were running, too. The occasional car horn was heard as well, and, no, it wasn’t in keeping with any holiday melody that we know.

Tidings of comfort and joy?

Or a victim of its own success?

No, we’re not defecting to Scrooge’s camp. But we do wonder if Capital Lights in the Park has become too big and too unwieldy.

And, yes, we’re well aware of the ultimate beneficiaries of all that traffic lured by the massive light display, and even the toll it potentially takes on such a magnificently landscaped and preserved city park.

It’s the Police Athletic League, and the after-school and crime-prevention programs it provides for kids across Albany. The PAL cleared nearly $100,000 of the $382,000 it raised in 2009 from the people who pay — $15 a car this year and more for limousines and, yes, buses — to take in a Christmas lights display that keeps getting bigger and brighter. The event, which runs from late November to the end of December, is a tradition for many Albany residents and people in neighboring communities.

Still, come New Year’s, when the lights are off and the roads are clear again, it might be time to think anew about the best place for such a popular and successful fundraising endeavor.

The folks at the Washington Park Conservancy have their concerns, understandably enough. The group’s commitment is to the year-round maintenance of what’s literally the legacy of Frederick Law Olmstead.

What’s more notable is that city officials acknowledge what the holiday lights do to a park better suited for more passive use.

It’s matter of balancing funding for the PAL with “the residual damage to the park,” says Bob Van Amburgh, an aide to Mayor Jerry Jennings.

Already, other sites have been mentioned for such a huge production. The Harriman State Office Campus is particularly promising, Mr. Van Amburgh says. The roads that run through there could accommodate all those cars — as many as 1,500 on a busy Saturday night — as well, and probably better, as those in Washington Park. And the green space at the state campus isn’t nearly as delicate as it is in the park.

We’re intrigued, too, by the Corning Preserve. The grounds seem to be sufficiently durable for the electrical junction boxes and generators that the lights require. The problem, says Mr. Van Amburgh, is that the road along the riverfront might not be able to handle the car traffic.

Still another idea, Mr. Van Amburgh says, is to rely on PAL’s corporate sponsorships and spread out the lights displays along major thoroughfares like Delaware Avenue, Madison Avenue and Broadway, so motorists wouldn’t have to pay admission.

Anything for some seasonal flavor that helps keep PAL afloat and spares the park that happens to be one of Albany’s greatest assets. It doesn’t matter where the lights go up. We still can sing “Christmastime in the City.”

Promise.

4 Responses

There are costs and benefits from living in the city. I respect the nerve it takes to argue, with a straight face, that costs of the few should outweigh the benefits of the many. But the words of those who put their happiness ahead of that of families with small children are of no more significance than a passing breeze from a land fill. Adults make choices and accept the cost and benefits of their choices. They, unlike children, should not be indulged by the community.

According to the Times Union’s past Editorials it’s a wonderful thing to illegally Occupy parks around the country for the purposes of venting a thousand different perceived grievances, but now “Capital Lights in the Park has become too big and too unwieldy”. I’ve been to the Zucotti park occupation and smelled the filth and listened to the half baked rationality of the mostly borderline insane campers, and I have been to the family oriented lights in the park display, whereby hundreds of thousands of dollars are raised for charity. It’s a no brainer to figure out which parks occupation should be encouraged, unless one is possessed with the half baked rationality of the mostly borderline insane, as is demonstrated by Times Union Editorial Board.

Is it a wonder that the TU is once again on the wrong side of an issue?? This has been going on in the park for the past fiftenn years with little or no issues. It has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the PAL. The fact that the city officals even listen to the driveol against the display is astounding. Do any public officals actually listen to their constituancy? This has been soundly recieved by the public adn now a small handful of people will destry a good thing. The cornign preserve is not an intriguing location but rather a bad idea. There is no way to allow traffic to flow smoothly through the park. Instead you would rather have people having to walk about looking at the displays undoubtly leading to injuries, crime etc that does not happen when people stay in there cars and drive through. Again, the Times Union on the wrong side of an issue – big surprise.

I agree with the editorial. It’s time to find a less intrusive place for the lights display, since it’s grown so much. No one’s suggesting that the event be shut down, just relocated to a place that is not in the middle of a residential neighborhood and not in a small park that is being damaged by the construction.

And I wouldn’t want to be the people who live around the park, to have to put up with the noise, the traffic, the lights, the car exhaust, for an entire month of every year. They already have to deal with the mess and noise of the Tulip Festival and Larkfest. They all deserve a tax break for their troubles!